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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Yesterday I was tagged in a meme by my buddy Brandon who blogs at Lost in Idaho. I don't usually participate in these things, as you might know, since whenever I participate in these things I always start by saying "I don't usually participate in these things." This time, however, I was struck by the somewhat passive-aggressive nature of the title of the award: Good bloggers pay it forward.

Well, shit! I want to be a good blogger! So, if I don't pay it forward does that make me a bad blogger? What about all those other times when I got an award and just ignored it? Does that mean I'm actually a bad blogger? I don't want to be a bad blogger! I guess I'm going to have to pay it forward, then. Dammit. Okay, blog award: you win this round.

(The truth is, really, that I'm actually kind of a shitty blogger when it comes to stuff like this. I'm following at least 500 blogs and I never actually make it to any of them to comment or even read, really. 500 is a lot, you know! That's a lot of fucking work! And my reader fills up so fucking fast, and then it maxes out and I get so overwhelmed by it all that I usually just hit "mark all as read" and move on. It's not that I don't appreciate and love you all, it's just that I, apparently, have gotten in a little over my head here and now I don't know how to fix that. I really appreciate how you all keep coming back and reading and commenting here, despite the fact that I'm apparently an elitist bitch and refuse to reciprocate because I guess I'm just too cool for that or something. Sorry.)

Anyway, the rules are pretty much the same as the rules for every other blog award ever made, including my own, pick 5 bloggers to mention and tell you why I love them. Except, just to prove that I'm still actually a rebel when it comes to blog memes, I'm NOT going to follow the rules! Instead I'm just going to list 5 bloggers that I love and NOT tell you why. HA HA! You see what I did there? I'M DIABOLICAL!

When I find a new song or band, I tend to listen to them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Y'know, just like everybody else in the entire world does. And then I get sick of them because I've listened to them so many times and, sadly, can never, ever listen to them again. Or, at least, I need to take a 6 month break, but then when I hear them again I'm still kind of "meh" about the whole thing.

Today, however, I discovered that there was at least one song that, no matter how many times I played the thing to death, I have never gotten sick of. And, seriously? I've listening to this song a LOT. Like... a LOT. I know all the harmonies; really well. But even after however long its been, I'm still not sick of it. And maybe it's just such a fucking awesome song it has some built-in "never-get-sick-of" mechanism that does some sort of voodoo on your brain. And, also, the video? DROOL.

I and Love and You, Avett Brothers

And then I started thinking that there were probably other songs in the world that I also am not sick of, despite my obsessiveness. There aren't too many, but there are a few. You get all studio versions, since those are the versions I've played to death over the years.

Melissa, Allman Brothers

Cassidy, Grateful Dead but originally by Bob Weir on his solo album

Angel, Sarah McLachlan (reminds me of my brother)

What are yours?

Update: I just found another one. Oh, look! More Avett Brothers. There's that brain voodoo stuff again...

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

So, guys, I've been thinking... (oh, by the way, today on Twitter, in response to my "I don't know about you guys but anarchy is looking pretty good to me right now," somebody took offense at my use of the word "guys," because, as a woman, she doesn't like to be called that, and she said "Every time we assume masculine as the standard, we uphold the structure of patriarchy." I don't know her at all, and I assume she's a nice person just stating her opinion, so I went with the non-ridicule response option and I said that I call everybody "guys," men, women, kids and cats alike. However, since probably the majority of my readers here are female, I'd just like to profoundly apologize for the part I play in upholding the structure of the patriarchy in today's sexist society, with my use of this potentially pejorative term. Please accept my humble gratitude for your continued viewership, despite everything I've said that has subjugated you.)

So, guys, I've been thinking.... I can't help but notice that the posts of mine that you guys tend to like the best are the ones where I'm talking about some boneheaded thing that I've done. I figure that's because it bring us all, you guys and I, closer together as human beings. We realize, in the sharing of these farcical and sometimes humiliating stories of mine, that you guys and I are all just human beings, making our way through this life of ours (your guys' lives, and my own) and that nobody is perfect. You guys and I can laugh at the absurd, but when we do it together, we realize that we're not really actually all that alone on this big, dark, lonely planet of ours.

No, that's horseshit, of course. Really it's just funny to laugh at the crazy lady with the curly hair when she does wacky things. And I completely agree with you! And I realize that a lot of you guys are relatively new readers and probably haven't read any of my old stuff, but I've been talking shit about myself since day ONE! And so, as a present from me to you guys, I have created a new tag and called it "HA HA I'm Dumb" and have painstakingly gone through every fucking post that I've ever written, looking for the posts about my stupidity, and have applied that label to old posts that I think you guys might enjoy reading. There are 20 of them. TWENTY.

And THEN, guys, I started thinking that, I mean, really, I've been doing crazy shit much longer than I've been blogging about it. In fact, probably about once a day for much of my adult life I've found myself in a situation where I'm screaming at myself inside my head "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP TALKING NOW!" And I went back through the pasta strainer that is my memory and came up with a few more stories for your enjoyment!

And so, I present to you guys.... HA HA I'm Dumb.... Through the Years.

Guys.

1986: I was 16 years old and had just started driving. I was pulling out of some parking lot, and this dude started honking at me. Well, I was 16 and hot shit (and not one to be held down by the patriarchy) so I was like "fuck you, honker!" and drove off. But he kept following me, and he kept honking, and I was like WTF??? until he pulls up alongside of me and told me that I had left my wallet and all the rest of my belongings on top of my car and had been leaving a trail of wallet items behind as I smugly drove down the road.

1992: I had just met my now husband. At the time I had one of these funky alarm clocks with this really big snooze button on top, so that when it went off all I usually had to do was just to flail my arm in its general direction and hit the snooze button. One morning we were sleeping and the alarm went off. I guess I wasn't used to sharing a bed with somebody, and I was facing the wrong way, and instead of reaching out and smacking the top of my alarm clock, I reached out and smacked my eventual husband (really hard) on the top of his head. His response? "Thanks." Almost 20 years later and that still makes me giggle.

2009: It was the last day of school for Child 1; it had been kind of a rough year. I had made enemies throughout the district, including the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, the Public Information Officer and, well, pretty much anybody that worked at the school district, really. I was walking through the hallway on that last day (I'm not sure why I didn't have Child 1 with me, since school was all over, but for some reason I didn't) and as I'm walking I spot ahead of me the Assistant Superintendent, who I can't fucking stand. For the purposes of this story, let's call him Mr. Smith. So, I spot Mr. Smith coming towards me, he says "hello Ms. Smo" and I say "uhhhh. yeah..." or something equally awesome, and before we're able to pass each other, I duck into the classroom of a teacher friend of mine. You know... to hide! I go up to her and I say "GOD. Mr. Smith is out there, I fucking hate that guy!" And then I see her face, and she's looking over my shoulder, with this kind of expression:

And I turn around to look and... of course... Mr. Smith had followed me into the room and had heard what I had just said about him. I mumbled something or other and bolted from the room. Oy.

2010: Child 1 hates the Food Network for some reason, which sucks because we used to watch a lot of it. One day he came into the room while we're watching Rachel Ray put EVOO on things and insisted that we turn it off. I ask him what he wants to watch, instead, and he says "kickball." Do they even have that on TV? I flipped through the channels looking for something sportsy and I see that the Stanley Cup is on. Thinking that the Stanley Cup is soccer, I say "Let's watch soccer! It's just like kickball!" Everybody is happy until the commercial ends and we quickly learn that the Stanley Cup is, in fact, hockey. I say "oh, it's hockey, not soccer. Well, it's kind of like kickball, except they don't kick stuff and there's no ball."

I'm sure there are more stories, but be glad that I even came up with four of them. My mind is like a steel trap that somebody has riddled with bullet holes. It's like a fishnet stocking. It's like swiss cheese. It's like.... oh, that's enough.... you get the point.

Monday, July 25, 2011

So, it was Friday night, late, and I was making my final rounds through the house, turning off lights and such, when I encountered 2 things in my TV room: 1. A dead mouse, and 2. A bowl of cheerios that had been spilled all over a chair. I took pictures of them both, assuming I had something for a "Things I Find In My House" post.... little did I know that fate had other things in store for this particular blog post. I would show them to you, but, nobody really needs to see a picture of a dead mouse, right? So you can imagine what it looked like. Plus, I have no doubt that you can also imagine what a spilled bowl of cheerios might look like.

I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do about this situation. Normally what I would do would be to call hubs and make him deal with the dead mouse, and then get one of the kids to come and clean up their mess on the chair. However, everybody was already in bed, hubs had the flu, and I figured I should just deal with it, myself. But what was I supposed to do?

Then it came to me! I'll take the bowl, where the cheerios used to be, and I'll use it as a scooping device, of sorts, and I'll take the dead mouse outside! Awesome! Oh, did I mention that it was Friday night? And that I was drunk? Yeah. That fact isn't necessarily important to the outcome of this story, but it should be pointed out, nonetheless.

So, I do the scooping thing, and I head into the backyard, and suddenly I'm being followed by about 5,000 (murderous) cats who are very interested in what I might be carrying in this bowl. Hey, what do you have there, human? Can I see? Can I just check it out? Just real quick like? And suddenly I have this sense of urgency, that I must get rid of this mouse as soon as I possibly can. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it; I actually considered composting it, but that would have required a whole lot more effort than I was interested in at the moment, so, instead, I head to the back of our backyard, to the fence that separates our property from the neighbors, and.... observe.......

Saturday, July 23, 2011

I'm sad about this; I'm really sad. I thought she was amazingly talented and have been following her career for the past few years, along with the rest of us, and for some reason I kept thinking that she was going to be able to pull it together. It's really no surprise to anybody that she died of an overdose, particularly me, but... I don't know. I didn't think she was going to end up this way. I thought she was going to make it. Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I just had a higher opinion of her than anybody else did.

The first song I heard was Rehab, on the radio; I'm no Winehouse hipster or anything, I heard of her at the same time as the rest of you. At first I was confused by it, though, because it sounds so much like a 1960's girl group, but I had never heard it before. Was it a cover? But, no, that was just her style; not necessarily mine, but okay. I read some articles about her and was profoundly struck by something she said once in an interview: "I write songs because I'm fucked in the head and need to get something good out of something bad." She obviously had her demons, who doesn't, really? But there was something about that line that made me take a particular interest.

I saw that video of her fucking up horribly and what struck me most about it wasn't how much of a trainwreck it was, it was to wonder how the people around her could have let that happen? Not that they let her get on stage in that condition, but that they let her even get to that condition. She's on tour, I think that concert was in Serbia, and she's surrounded by people all day long. She also had obviously been drinking and doing drugs all day long, while surrounded by people? Anybody who actually cared about her would have never let that happen, which must mean that she spent her days being surrounded by people who didn't really care about her. Add that to the the demons she already had and it was no wonder she was an addict. She may have been supremely talented, but she was also in obvious pain; a lot of it, and apparently the people in her life weren't willing to help her.

And why is that? Well, that's just the culture we live in, right? She made a lot of people a lot of money by being a huge celebrity trainwreck. Nobody had any incentive to help her get healthy, where is the money in that? All the while the public watches with gleeful abandon as her life completely falls apart, because there's nothing we like more than to watch somebody's spectacular failure happen in the public light. It puts our own lives in perspective. Hey, things might suck for me, but at least I'm not Amy Winehouse, right? And now, of course, we wait eagerly for the results of the toxicological examination so that we can say things like "Oh my god, she had all of that in her system? What a fool! No wonder she died!" and then we can all feel really superior about ourselves; because she's dead, and we're not. She was weak; that would never happen to me.

I'm not saying this tragedy is any worse than any other; I can keep things in perspective, but like I said, it makes me sad. There was a woman with enormous talent, with public demons and very obvious pain, and she's surrounded by enablers who want to keep her like that. What chance did she really have, anyway?

EDIT: I hate having to clarify myself, but I obviously wasn't completely clear the first time. Yes, of course I know that you can't stop an addict who wants to continue to use. Perhaps even one or two of the people in her daily life actually made a half assed attempt to try? Possible, I don't know. I'm not saying that the fault lies with anybody except the addict herself. But it's probably true that most of the people around her 1. had a job to do and 2. were just there so they could party with her. Even if you take away the alcohol in her hotel room, when 10 people show up at the door with heroin, does the lack of alcohol really matter? It's hard enough for an addict to try to quit when they're just a "regular" person, but when you're surrounded by people whose livelihoods depend on you continuing on as you were, or by a huge bunch of "fans" who want to be able to say that they partied with Amy Winehouse in her final days, and then sell the pictures they took for thousands of dollars... she never had a chance. That's what I'm saying.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Yesterday was Child 2's birthday, as you know. If you don't.... whatever. Yesterday was Child 2's birthday. And since I'm the best mom ever, I decided to make him a cake from scratch. He doesn't like frosting or anything fancy, he just likes plain old yellow pound cake. How hard can that be, right?

Well, I'll tell ya.

I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm a shitty baker. I mean, I can whip up a delightful Chicken Tikka Masala, but for some reason whenever sugar and eggs and flour are involved, things tend to go horribly, horribly wrong.

That, of course, didn't stop me from downloading a "very simple" pound cake recipe from Allrecipes.com and giving it the ol' college try, whateverthefuck "ol' college try" even means. (What does that expression mean? Is it about blow jobs? Because that's the only thing I can think of that might work there.)

Now, it was the boy's birthday, and he was supposed to spend the day at camp and I was going to spend the day trying to make a pound cake (and also Chicken Tikka Masala!) but when I dropped him off in the morning, he said that his head hurt. And his stomach hurt. And he felt like throwing up. And then it felt like his head was throwing up. And he couldn't go to camp. And he needed to get back in the car and go home with me. And "but it's my birthday!" Okay, I get it. He didn't want to go to camp, he wanted to spend his birthday hanging with his Mama. FINE. I had a meeting so I made him go for the morning and then I went back to pick him up after lunch.

Unfortunately that meant that if there was to be cake making, he was going to have to help me. And, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this about him before, but.... he's really not very helpful. He's been trying to "help" me with stuff since he was about 2, which is so super sweet, and I don't want to tell him "no, you can't help me," but, seriously? Not helpful. At all. Hubs always says that he's "very well intentioned." Usually what I do when he wants to "help" is make up some random, seemingly related activity that will have him running all over the house and out of my way. Like, when I'm folding laundry and he wants to help (read: he actually just wants to build a towel fort), I will hand him single socks and say "go all the way downstairs to the TV room and put this sock on the couch." He will happily run away and oftentimes get distracted by something he finds in the TV room and sometimes won't come back for a good 10 minutes. When he does, I'll be ready with another sock, meant for the kitchen counter. And so on.

This actually looks kind of gross, but it's just the mixing bowl and a pan. Don't get any ideas, perverts!

Anyway, he was helping me make his cake today, which meant he stood on a chair and practically got his fingers chopped off by the electric mixer. Helpful. As usual, since I was trying to, you know... bake something, it wasn't going very well. Sugar was flying all around, chunks of butter were hitting the wall, my arm was getting really sore from trying to mix it and I was imagining that this cake wasn't going to actually turn out very well.

So I says to him, I says:

Me: Child 2, I think you're going to need to lower your standards a little when you eat this thing

Child 2: Don't worry, my standards are really really really low.

Me: Do you know what that means, to "lower your standards?"

Child 2: Nope

Me: It means you're not expecting much. If your standards are low it means you're not expecting to be eating a really good cake at the end of this process.

Child 2: Don't worry, I'm expecting absolutely nothing.

As I start to put the eggs in, the sugar starts flying around less and I start to feel a little bit more optimistic about things, so I say....

Me: Okay, I think you can start to raise your standards just a little bit, this might not be as bad as I thought.

Child 2: In the last few minutes, my standards have raised about 5%.

We continue on, the flour goes in, the cream goes in, it's starting to actually look like cake batter! He looks at it and says:

Child 2: My standards have gone up another 3% since the last time I told you about my standards.

Me: Great! So we're up to 8% now, right?

The mix is done and I, of course, don't have the right kind of pan for the particular recipe that I've chosen, and so I split the batter into 2 unequal and uneven parts. It goes into the pans and we very happily put them in the oven and head off to play Mario Kart while we wait.

I go to check on the cakes and find out that one of them has risen dramatically above the top of its container and is spilling all over the side and onto the bottom of the oven.

Huh. I didn't know it was going to rise like that. It doesn't have any baking powder or baking soda or whatever that "baking" thing is that makes shit rise. I guess the flour did that? Bummer, though. Because that's the one that was supposed to look good and be decorated; the other one was just going to be leftover cake pieces that we would snack on.

At this point I'm regretting having invited people over "for some cake" later in the evening.

The recipe says to bake it for an hour and a half, and I put them both in at 2:00. The skinnier, flatter cake was done after about 45 minutes so it came out to cool. I had to leave to pick up Child 1 from camp at 3:40, so I should still have plenty of time, right?

Yeah, no, though. Since I used the wrong kind of pan it was denser than the recipe was assuming and actually needed longer to cook than that. So when I took it out, it was still totally soupy in the middle. But I didn't really have a choice, since I had to go get the boy, I couldn't just leave it in the oven, I had to take it out. I had no choice!

On our way out, I called Hubs and ask him to stop at Costco on his way home and buy some of their pound cakes, which I happen to know from experience come fully cooked. And then Child 2 suggested that we put the cake back in the oven when we return. Shit! Why the hell not, right?? And so we did! I left the oven on and when we all got back I put it back in for 10 minutes. I didn't actually know if that was long enough, but I figured I'd worked this poor thing over for so long now I should really just put it out of its misery. And, really, how much worse could things get at this point?

Hey, do you know what's an easy way to clean up the side of a cake pan that's spilled over? You just eat the side right off! Presto chango!

Okay, well.... now they're both out of the oven and honestly, at this point, I've given up on the whole "Mama baked a birthday cake" idea and am just waiting for Hubs to get home, because Hubs? Is a good baker. When he bakes stuff it actually turns out yummy, very few things ever catch on fire and if anybody can salvage this pastry disaster, it would be him. I call him "Master Baker" heh heh heh. (I do, I say "Master Baker" and then immediately afterward I say "heh heh heh.") Unfortunately Hubs has the flu and didn't feel like dealing with my Cake of Destruction. I thought maybe I could shave off the top and have an even surface with which to decorate? But when I did that, and I discovered that it was still totally cake soup in the middle there, Hubs helpfully suggested "maybe you should just shoot it."

Whatever.

I ate the cooked parts and threw away the rest. And then later when I was making dinner? The spilled cake bits that were on the bottom of the oven actually caught on fire. Yes, that's right! I started a fucking fire trying to bake my kid a cake for his birthday.

Sigh.

Here's the cake we ended up with; fully baked, from Costco. I asked Hubs if he would put "Happy Birthday Child 2" so that I could use an undoctored photo for the blog, but he refused. Whatever!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

I thought about maybe talking about my birth story but it's really nothing more exciting than the OB saying "How's the 21st for you?" and me saying "Sure, I'm not doing anything that day except having a baby, I guess."

Here's a picture I took the other night; this is exactly how we found him sleeping when we got home. I expect that in about 10-15 years his friends will be taking similar type pictures of him, but I won't get to see them. I thought I might save this and show it to every girl or guy that he ever brings home, but I think it's special enough that I should save it for when he finds "the one."

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

There's an article today on a website called Project Syndicate which claims, among other things, "The most likely cause of the autism epidemic is that autism has become fashionable – a popular fad diagnosis."

This claim is so insane that it should really be met with outrage and a well thought-out response, particularly one which offers the author a chance to come to my house and judge for himself whether or not autism is just a fashionable outfit around here. However, because this idea is just so fucking laughable, I think that the only appropriate way to counter it, really, is with mockery.

Edit: Brandon left me the BEST comment and I had to change the picture to include it; it's the line underneath the title of the pic

Monday, July 18, 2011

Note: This is long. If you'd like to not have to read it all but still want to find out the gist of the story, skip to the end for a TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

Some and/or none of you might remember that about 5 months ago I blogged that My Husband is Cool, because he had given me the world's most awesome gift. At the time I said I wasn't going to explain and ever since then I've been DYING to blog about this, but I made myself wait until the whole thing was over. If you make it through this whole long thing, you'll understand why.

Here's the background: I am a freelance Bookkeeper. I have 7 clients and I am a contractor for them all. I set my own hours and for all of them except one I have determined my own hourly rate.

I have been with one of my clients for a year and a half. I started as employee by answering a CraigsList ad and it was only after I started working there that things took off for me and I started picking up other clients. At that time I asked if she would switch me from employee to contractor but I didn't ask for a raise. She agreed.

Last year was a rough year for her (I even fucking blogged about her before) and for a while we weren't really sure how she was going to make it, but we all stuck it out and she pulled through, quite nicely, actually. She's fine now. During that time, though, I was checking my work email from home during all hours of the day and the week, and I was checking her bank balance at all hours, because I was worried about payroll going through and such. She knew all of this, because I would always email her about our bank balance whenever I checked it.

Her office was a minimum 30 minute drive from my house and she paid me the least amount of money (almost half) of what I make from everybody else. I had gotten pretty busy in the first part of this year, so much so that I was not only turning potential clients down, but I actually had to let one go because I just didn't have the time. I had thought, over the first 2-3 months of this year, that I really should drop her, because of the money and the inconvenience of getting there... but I liked her, and I was loyal to her, and I didn't want to leave her... because I liked her, and that's how I am. Loyal, to a fault. Apparently

So, I had been thinking "maybe after my 1 year anniversary she'll give me a raise; that will make it all worth it." Except, I had been working on the budget, which includes specific instructions to give "a minimum 4% COLA raise for all employees on their anniversary date" but did not include me... because I wasn't an employee. Okay, that's kind of annoying, I figure I'll just have to ask her fore more money; okay, I can do that. I'll wait until my anniversary date, which was mid-February.

In early February there's an email from her to our Office Manager, cc'ed to me (because I get cc'ed on all finance related matters, no matter what it is) saying "I'd like to give all the employees a bonus because they've been working so hard the last month. Can you please purchase 8 $100 gift cards from Amazon.com?" Now, I can add, being a Bookkeeper and all, and I know that there are 9 people on the payroll: 8 employees and 1 contractor: me. So I'm like WTF Boss Lady? (I said this to myself) and I know she's going to hand them out at the February staff meeting so I'll just hang on and see what happens.

Sure enough, at the February staff meeting, everybody got congratulated for working so hard and everybody got an envelope. She even makes a big deal to point out that the IT guy, although he doesn't work directly with the clients, still works really hard and should get a reward. Not me, though. No... I get fucking snubbed. In a very obvious way. People are looking at me and wondering what the deal was.

I. Was. Fucking. Pissed.

The meeting is over and I get up and leave the room, I go to my desk to turn off my computer and she comes up a few minutes later and says "I gave all the employees that because...." seriously.... she fucking trails off..... I say "it's cool" because the only other option there was "GO FUCK YOURSELF, BITCH" which is clearly not appropriate (damn) and she walks away. I shut down my computer and bolt the fuck out of there.

I was fuming. I go home and yell the whole story to hubs. I talk it over with a bunch of folks, and I decide not to make any rash decisions and I will calm down before I make my next move.

This was the gift I woke up to the next morning, which prompted the "my husband is awesome" post, and that I've been sitting on for the past 5 months, dying to share it with you all:

So, at that point, all of my loyalty is completely fucking gone. I felt like I'd been kicked in the ass. I was more hurt than angry, actually. I didn't want revenge, but I couldn't just let it go. I actually thought it over for a few months and I figured that I had 3 options:

1. Do nothing and carry on as I was;
2. Ask for more money and see what happens; or
3. Quit

Obviously #1 wasn't going to happen, I could never live with that. I vacillated between 2 and 3 for a while. If I asked for more money, she might say yes. Actually, she probably would have said yes, and then I would have to stay there, and did I really want to stay there? I had to figure that part out.

My answer came to me one day in a staff meeting. Oh, sorry.... they're called Company Meetings and you have to call them Company Meetings because Staff Meeting is incorrect. This is a PR firm that works with tech companies that I was working for, and I sat there listening to them talk about how to get their clients to use Twitter to increase their business and I was struck by 2 things:

1. The only purpose for this company being in business is to make money. That's all they do. I have a lot of nonprofit clients who do things like provide free counseling to kids in Juvie, or (illegally) promote Democracy in China and not only do they pay me what I'm worth, they actually do something worthwhile. I'm not interested in staying in a place that doesn't appreciate me, doesn't pay me what I'm worth AND serves no purpose other than to make money for themselves.

2. I was in this meeting Tweeting on my phone under the table about the irony of me tweeting on my phone under the table while around me people talked about how to use Twitter to maximize business profitability, and you know what? At the time I write this I have 1,727 Twitter followers. This company has 478. They could probably learn a few things from me about how to use Twitter to maximize your whateverthefuck. What the hell do they actually know about using Twitter, anyway?

So, I decided, I was going to leave. There was still the possibility that once I gave notice, she might suddenly realize how awesome I am and offer me more money? But.... no. Nothing. I quit. I trained my replacement. I left. And now that I've completely left? FINALLY I CAN BLOG ABOUT IT.

There's a slight possibility that she still might see this, especially since I'm fully intending to email this post to 2 of my former co-workers (Hi guys!! Try not to pass this on to anybody who might forward it to You Know Who) but at this point, fuck it. I didn't burn any bridges, I kept emotion out of it, I remained professional, my karma is intact, I think I handled it appropriately. At my very awkward final meeting, she gave me a hug and told me I could still use her as a reference. I won't, though.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

The other day, a woman at Child 1's camp told me that "there are 2 types of autistic people. 1. The kind that wants to have friends but doesn't know how and 2. The kind that doesn't care about having friends at all."

Child 1 is Autistic Type #2, according to that description. I would like to talk to an autistic adult who is also Type #2. Not (necessarily) for a guest post, just because I have questions.

You don't have to be "that type" as an adult, but if you were when you were 9? I would like to talk to you.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Child 2 got a Wii for his birthday (he's going to be SIX!!) and we've been having a blast playing it. We have 2 games: Mario Kart and Wii Sports.

I suck at both of them.

Now, there's 2 different ways to suck at something: 1. You're awful but it's a whole lot of fun so you keep doing it, and 2. You're awful and you HATE it. Child 2 and I are both #1 with Mario Kart and we have so much fun playing it. We do a lot of screaming (Hubs says "are you playing a game or having a knife fight?") and we can often be heard hollering at the top of our lungs "ROCKET CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!" I love Rocket Car.

I'm #2 with most of the sports games, although I'm much better at Wii bowling than regular bowling. He loves them all, though, and insists that I play them again and again, despite my suckery. Some are worse than others, of course.

For example, golf. We've only played it once, because I absolutely refuse to ever play it again. Did you know that when you get to +8 over par they won't even let you play anymore? Even they know you suck at it and so they just make you stop. Probably to save yourself from further embarrassment? Thanks, Wii!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Over the weekend I hit 500 followers here (504 now. I waited too long to finish writing this piece of shit post. WHATEVER). 500 is a nice, round number... and I like nice, round numbers. There are no pennies, no fractions, it's just a 5 followed by two boobs. Who wouldn't like that, AmIRight?? So, I thought I'd throw a 500 Party and invite 500 of my closest friends. Because I like parties. Maybe you knew that about me. Okay, cheers! YAYYYY! DRINKING!!!!

In order to celebrate the 500ness of this occasion, I thought I'd tell you a few things related to 5plus2boobs that you might not have known before today.

Did you know...... ?

1. Each year all of the Hostess bakeries combined bake 500 million Twinkies a year.

2. The game Monopoly has been played by approximately 500 million people in the world

3. There were 500 flower vases on board the Titanic when it sank

4. 500 is an HTTP status code for Internal Server Error

5. The year 500 AD was a leap year

6. Of the 4 million children are born in the United States every year, approximately 36,500 of them will eventually be diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (there's a 500 in there somewhere, so, close enough).

No, I'm not going to link to any of the sites where I found this interesting information. As far as you know, I made all of this shit up. That's just the way I roll, man.

Here are some other interesting facts you probably didn't know before today:

1. I was my first follower here! In fact, I have always been my biggest supporter (actually... if you knew me... you would know that's complete horseshit and I'm actually my own worst enemy. Y'know..... like Pink...... but shhhhhhhhh....... [whisper]just go with it[/whisper])

2. I obsessively check my site stats and I label your IP address whenever you comment, so I'm going to need you all to comment on this post, especially if you've never commented before, so that I can label you. And then watch as you come and go. And wonder. Do they think I'm funny? Are they laughing right now? Do they like me? If they like me why don't they leave a comment? Why doesn't anybody ever click on that juggling chick's boobs over there in the sidebar? Maybe they hate me? They probably hate me. I'm sure they'll never return because I'm so unfunny and they hate me ..... sniff....... So lonely. So very very lonely......

3. You're only actually getting 2 uninteresting facts about me. I was going to write a long rant about BlogHer and how I don't want to be part of their "publishing network," because they keep fucking rejecting me for syndication, and.... OH. I see.... BlogHer..... If that's even your real name..... is that how it works with you? I'm not good enough for you to publish my words but you'll still try to make some money off of my 504 loyal readers? Is that all you think I'm good for?? Well no way, BlogHer! No fucking way!!(OMG... I'm just kidding. Please don't be mad at me, BlogHer. Please? Will you please syndicate me? It would make me so happy!! I want one of those "I've been syndicated" graphics so much. Can I maybe wash your car? Or pick up your dry cleaning? Do you have enough weed? I can get you some of that if you want. Would that make you happy? I just want to make you happy. I don't know what to do to make you happy!!!! WHY DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME WHEN I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH?????????????)

Ahem.

Anyway... on that note..... let's actually celebrate this milestone.... with a picture. And what better celebration picture is there than a stick figure drawing of a helicopter penis? RIGHT??? Hey, I happen to have one of those!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Okay, so... this morning I'm driving Child 1 up the hill to his fancy schmancy new Social Skills Camp blah blah blah. I'm nervous about it, because I'm neurotic, and I always get nervous when I take him to a new place for the first time. (He's not nervous. I'm nervous. Whatever.) I had left early because I know that parking is a problem in the area, and yep! Sure enough, parking was a problem in that area, even though I was early. I'm nearing the camp place when suddenly.... I see a spot. And hark, the heavens did sing. And the world was glorious. And all was right in the world. So, I go to... you know... park there, when....

Actually, at this point I think some poorly drawn visuals might help you.....

So, here's me... approaching the camp place, when suddenly.... there it is

I look to see if anybody is coming in either direction (and this is kind of important... because nobody was fucking coming... in either direction) and I make this herky jerky suddenly-turn-my-car-in-the-direction-of-said-vacant-spot motion so that I can make a 3-point turn and ACTUALLY PARK THERE.

And then I pull backwards so that I can prepare to slide into the beautiful, beautiful parking spot

And then as I begin to make Step 3 of 3 Point Turn, I look ahead of me AND SUDDENLY THERE'S A FUCKING BLUE CAR PARKED IN MY SPOT. IN. MY. SPOT.

And I make eye contact with the driver and I do one of these, except with both hands

And she gives me this fucking shoulder shrug thing as if to say "Oh well. You lose."

OH. MY. GOD.

At this point I've now got cars lined up on both sides, waiting for me to get the fuck out of the middle of the street so they can pass, and the FUCKING BITCH has parked her car, so I have no choice but to go somewhere else. I say fuck it and park in the red because I'm really pissed off and don't feel like circling around (and I didn't get a ticket!)

The red spot is about 3 cars away from where she is, and hey! We both get out of our cars at the same time. I yell "Seriously? Are you kidding me??" and she, of course, ignores me. BITCH!

We both get our kids out of our cars and then? We walk into the camp together. She's in front of me, and I'm staring fucking daggers into the back of her bitchy head, and oh my god I wanted to pull her shitty little hat off of it and shove it down her fucking throat, I was so pissed. I wanted to punch her in the back of the neck and then stomp on her back after she fell down. I wanted revenge.

However (unfortunately?) I was thinking clearly enough to know that I didn't want to make a scene in front of her kids, and my kid; I mean... I'm not a crazy person (okay. I'm not a complete crazy person). But mostly I didn't want to stress out Child 1, and seeing his mom confront a skinny (I assume; I didn't actually get a good look at her) bitchy Berkeley mom minutes before he starts at a brand new unfamiliar camp would definitely stress him out.

So I made a choice to not confront her shitty little face about how much of a bitch she is and I was forced to swallow my rage in order to provide a good example for my child. And as I walked into the camp, picturing myself squeezing her throat until it snapped, I wished that I had some kind of outlet for my frustration and anger.

When suddenly... I remembered! I know about 501 people who might find my pain and anguish amusing, especially if I include poorly drawn visuals! I'll channel my rage into a post! I'll blog about this! That will ease my pain.

Yeah, it didn't. Of course. I'm still pissed. And now whenever I go back to the camp I'm going to be looking for her, and hoping that I can run over her foot with my giant car.... or something..... Or? Maybe I can find out who she is so I can email this post to her.....

Monday, July 11, 2011

Hey, I haven't had an angry autism-related rant in a little while, I think I'm due, don't you? Yeah.

I have angrily ranted here before about how science has failed us, the parents of children with autism. I won't repeat myself except to say that science has failed us: the parents of children with autism. Nobody knows what causes autism. NOBODY. Even the people who claim that they know what causes autism... they're wrong. They don't know. Science doesn't know, parents don't know, all we can do is guess, really. Some combination of genetic and environmental factors. Or perhaps just genetic factors? Or perhaps just environmental factors? Did I mention yet that nobody knows?

There's a new study out, done by Kaiser Permanente which says "Children whose mothers take Zoloft, Prozac, or similar antidepressants during pregnancy are twice as likely as other children to have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder" (hmmmm. a health insurance provider, I wonder if there was any self-serving motivation behind this study or these findings? No, no... that would be silly and cynical of me to even suggest such a thing... forget I said anything). It says "children who were exposed to the drugs during the first trimester were nearly four times as likely to develop an autism spectrum disorder." It does not say that antidepressants cause autism. It does stay that further research is necessary and these findings would need to be confirmed in larger studies. There has been a lot of talk on The Internets about this study, Mothers of children with autism are blaming themselves (moreso) and women are wondering if they should stop taking their meds if they want to get pregnant.

Let me tell you about my experience.

First of all, I have been depressed my entire life and I take an SSRI for it. I came to terms, long ago, with the fact that my brain chemistry is fucked up and I need this medication in order to survive. I'm not embarrassed about this, I'm not afraid to mention it, this is a fact of my life. Anybody have a problem with that? You can go fuck yourself.

Doctors will always tell you that, during pregnancy, everything is a "risk assessment." Do the potential risks that come with staying on your medication outweigh the benefit that you get from taking it? Will your life fall apart if you go off the meds? Will you make it through the next 9 months without it? Will your child definitely not have autism as a result? You don't know the answer to that last question, it's all just a toss-up, what with that whole "science has failed us" thing I mentioned earlier.

When I got pregnant with Child 1 I did my "risk assessment" and decided to stop taking the meds. "Nobody really knows," the doctor told me, so I decided to stop for the health of my baby. And I was totally miserable for 9 fucking months. I was angry and irritable all the time and I developed debilitating panic attacks while trying to commute to and from work. But that wasn't the worst of it....

The Post Partum Depression started a few weeks before he was born and continued for 6 weeks after his birth until I finally said "fuck this," stopped trying (and failing) to breastfeed and went back on the meds. Maybe some of you are now thinking "yeah, but it ended eventually and autism is forever," and that's certainly true, but those 2 months of hell were, without question, the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Worse than autism. And if I had continued on that course it's possible that one day I would have taken my baby and stepped in front of a moving car. And he ended up with autism, anyway.

With Child #2 I did the same risk assessment and when things started to fall apart, like it did the first time, I said "fuck this" much earlier and went back on the meds when I was about 6 months pregnant. No PPD. And no autism.

So, what is my point? I'm certainly not saying that my personal experience is proof that there's no connection between SSRIs and autism, I'm just reiterating my original point that nobody knows and science has failed us. But if you're thinking of going off meds to get pregnant, or facing any of those choices right now, don't let what happened to me happen to you. Do your risk assessments and if things start to fall apart? Take care of yourself. First.

It's not my fault that my kid has autism but it was my fault that I didn't take care of myself. And to any of you who did take the meds and whose kids have autism? It's not your fault your kid has autism. We're screwed, us autism moms, because no matter what happens it seems like we're going to get blamed for it, but it's not our fault

I know a lot of my friends with kids on the spectrum are reading this, and I'll ask you all this: If you knew then what you know now, would you have done anything differently?

I would. Even with knowing everything that I know today? I would have taken the meds.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

So, I saw the "controversial" article on CNN.com last week, as did all the rest of us: "Permissive parents: Curb your brats." And, like all the rest of us, I was offended by this guy's chutzpah, I mean.... "If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say "sit down" a thousand times." Seriously? Have you MET me? Have you SEEN my "look"? Oh, right... of course you haven't, but pesky things like "facts" don't often matter when you're busy judging someone. I considered writing a post about how much of an asshat this guy is, but then I thought that probably there was somebody out there who could do it better... and MAN was I right!!!

LZ assures us that "the look" will make any child immediately take heed of his/her parents warnings, sit down, be quiet and allow all adult conversation to pass without interruption. For hours, even.

How do you know if you possess "the look"? LZ wasn't very specific on this point, but he did say if you have "the look," you won't need to tell your child to "sit down" a bunch of times.

If you have "the look," you won't need to say much of anything at all, says LZ. You pretty much won't have to talk or interact with your child at all. They will just sit there, quietly noshing on their plate of steak and leafy greens, while you and your agent discuss your contract for the next year.

"But this nonverbal cue needs to be introduced early and reinforced diligently with consequences for transgressions, just like potty training." So if your child poops his pants, make sure to give him a diligent consequence.

LZ doesn't suggest what qualifies as "a diligent consequence," but it sounds like it might leave a mark.

"And whenever a kid throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the shopping mall it's just as bad as his soiling his pants to spite his parents, and it stinks just as much," says LZ. I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely seeing a pattern here. A poop-centric pattern. Anal-retentive much, LZ?

Except there's this. If you are honest with yourself, you will recall times that your own child(ren) had a tantrum in a restaurant, started screaming in the grocery store or impulsively ran towards a shiny display at the Mall. And studies show that due to age-determined developmental constraints, children lack the ability to control their emotions, behaviors and responses approximately most of the time.

That's just the way kids roll. Sorry to inconvenience you LZ, but I'm willing to bet you were a brat when you were little, too. But if my kid has a tantrum, I'll tell you what. I will address it. I will give him an appropriate consequence, after I find out what his damage is. Not because you told me I should, or tried to shame me into giving him some dumbass "look," but because I am a good parent. As are most of the people you decided to take to task in your hastily-written and obnoxiously judgemental article. So fuck you for assuming otherwise.

Now.

There's another group of kiddos I want to talk about. The one's that LZ neglected to mention, probably because he didn't think of them. Because LZ sounds like he's all about himself.

The kids with disabilities.

Here are some common childhood disorders, which can affect a child's everyday functioning:

Autism/PDD-NOS/Asberger's Syndrome

OCD

ADHD

Sensory Integration Disorder

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Bi-Polar Disorder

Anxiety Disorder

Language Processing Disorder

Tourette's Syndrome

That's right. I'm going there. Because my awesome, wonderful, loving and sensitive 8-year-old son also carries a diagnosis of severe ADHD, along with OCD, sensory integration issues and anxiety. Add that to the fact that his dad and I divorced at the beginning of this year. Oh, let's not forget the fact that his dad just died. Totally not ok with any child, especially one who obsesses. So yeah, my kid is going to act out sometimes and OMG it might happen in public. Don't worry LZ, I'll handle it.

So here's the deal, you judgmental sack of shit.

YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY CHILD.

YOU HAVE NEVER HAD TO HOLD HIM IN A RESTRAINT, BECAUSE HE'S FREAKED OUT THAT DADDY DIED.

YOU HAVEN'T CHASED HIM DOWN A BUSY STREET, BECAUSE HE'S TOO OVERWHELMED AND ANGRY AND SCARED AND OBSESSED ABOUT THE NEXT PERSON IN HIS LIFE WHO MIGHT SUDDENLY LEAVE HIM.

YOU HAVEN'T CRIED YOURSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, WORRYING THAT HIS MENTAL ILLNESS IS ONLY GOING TO WORSEN WITH AGE AND TIME.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO HEAR HIM REPEATING THE SAME PHRASE OVER AND OVER AND OVER, ALL BECAUSE A NEURON IN HIS BRAIN TELLS HIM IT NEEDS TO BE SAID.

YOU HAVE NEVER FELT YOUR BREATH CATCH IN YOUR THROAT, AS, AT THE AGE OF 6, HE PIPES UP FROM THE BACKSEAT OF THE CAR, ASKING, "MAMA? DO YOU EVER HAVE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD, TELLING YOU TO DO BAD THINGS?"

YOU DON'T SNEAK INTO HIS ROOM AT NIGHT, JUST TO BE ABLE TO SEE HIS SWEET FACE, FINALLY AT PEACE AFTER A TWO HOUR CRYING JAG.

AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO HIM APOLOGIZE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE'S DONE BAD THINGS. YOU DON'T HAVE TO HEAR HIM TELL YOU HOW MUCH HE HATES HIMSELF, AND THAT HE WISHES HE WAS DEAD SO HE COULD BE WITH DADDY.

And the list goes on.

LZ, you are an utter asshole for assuming that you can lump all children under the umbrella of "poor parenting." And you are an even bigger asshole for assuming that the overworked, overstressed and emotionally burdened parents of these children even give a fuck about your opinion.

Friday, July 8, 2011

This is stapled to a telephone pole on a busy intersection downtown. I stood on the sidewalk and stared at this thing for a good 3-4 minutes, but I still have no fucking clue what's going on here. Thoughts?

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Everybody on Twitter has been talking about Google Plus. They want to know where their invites are, and if they're on it, they want to know who else is in their timeline, or something, whatever it's called. There's so much hype! This thing is HUGE. I have no idea what it's all about, but I'll be honest... I'm a little pissed about that. Why did Google reject me? Doesn't Google think I'm good enough to be on their whatever this new thingy is? I think I'm good enough, Google. I think I'm perfect for your new whatever this thingy is. My self esteem has actually been more than a little bit affected by this rejection, I'll be honest with you all. This has been painful. Very very painful, for the entire 20 minutes now that I've been thinking about it.

Not only do I have to live with the sting of this rejection, but four different twitter buddies have now said they have sent me Google+ invitations... and nothing has actually arrived in my inbox. NOTHING. Four different people, Google! FOUR, and yes, I have a Google profile and YES it is public (I don't know why that's necessary, but I made SURE of it). I can't help but think that this is also personal, Google. Not only did you intentionally exclude from the awesome new fun thingybob dealie when it came out, but now you won't even let other people invite me to the, I guess, fun.

Well, I'm sorry, Google, but this is unacceptable. UNACCEPTABLE. Here I've been loyally using your free services for years now, and this is how you treat me?? This simply will not stand, Google. It. Will. Not. Stand. You have forced me into action because of your horrible, horrible mistreatment.

I officially announce a new project that I'm launching! I call it jillsmo equals.... and EVERYBODY is invited. (Hubs said I should call it Yeah. Good Times. Equals, but.... I like this one better). I don't care if you're uncool. I don't care if you're not "hip" or "with it." I don't care if "I don't even know who the fuck you are." I don't care!! EVERYBODY gets in! Nobody will be excluded from jillsmo equals. NOBODY.

Look! I made a logo:

Okay, so... now all I need is to figure out what the hell jillsmo equals is. Oh, and I probably need a programmer or something, you know, to actually make it happen. So I guess I'll get to work on that. And by "get to work on that" naturally I mean I'm going to make myself a drink and just wait for somebody to come and do it for me. If that doesn't happen, then, well... fuck it, I guess.

Note: Anybody who was talking to me on Twitter last night will know that I actually did get an invite to Google Plus; actually I got 5 of them. You don't get an email notification, is the thing, you just go to plus.google.com and as long as you have a Google profile and it is set to public, you should be able to get right in.

Note #2: Okay, apparently you don't even need an invite anymore, you just need a Google account. But fuck it, goddammit!! I already made the fucking logo and I wrote this whole post, so... GAH!! I'm posting it, anyway. There's no doubt that jillsmo= will be bigger and better than Google+ anyway, right? So I'm still doing it!!! See previous, though, re: I need a programmer and a clue.

"Before becoming a mother I had a hundred theories on how to bring up children. Now I have just one child, and just one theory: love them. Love them, especially when they are at their most unlovable."

-- Kate Samperi

I began writing this post for jillsmo, and I intended it to be a funny one. You know, poking fun at all the quirky things my quirky 14 yr old boy does.

Things we call "Einsteiny" in our home, like how he forgets to take off his socks and underwear when he gets in the shower. Or how he'll get into the wrong unlocked car after church. How he stood up in church for Father's Day when they asked all the dads to stand up.

He doesn't really listen all the way. We asked him to please not stand up at the Fourth of July service, when they called upon the veterans.

Some very quirky things, like how he won't eat red food, or eat things that have no texture.

How he won't wear jeans because they're stiff, and how his socks have to be goldtoe* brand because they are the softest.

And the list goes on.

But, then, 3/4 of the way through the post, something inside me turned.

As much and as easy as it is to laugh about these things, if you stop and look at HOW many things you can list, you sort of feel like crying.

There's a lot.

The truth is, it's hard being a parent of a child who is Out of Sync.

A child who needs an industrial decibel strength headset before being able to sit for Fourth of July fireworks, because he can't take loud noise. A child that will take it upon himself to worry when the pot of pasta boils over. A child that won't wear a shirt with buttons.

It's hard.

The sort of things that will get to you are the thoughts of jealousy at how easy you think the other parents have it.

They just have typical things to deal with: all difficult in their own right, but we have those AND we have this, too.

We have the people that stare at a child who seems to not be able to make all his body parts move as fluidly as others his age. We have the people that stare at a child who appears much too old to still want to spend time doing things that others he knows have already outgrown.

The list is long. And, some days, you don't feel like laughing about it anymore.

What you do feel like doing, is throwing a pity party. You realize that your life is different from the majority out there. You realize you have a very special kid. One that leaves you ragged and jagged with all your nerves exposed and live wired some days.

You see your child, and wonder, "Am I the right person to be his mom?" You ask yourself, "Would he be doing better if it weren't me, as his parent?"

You do these things. You find yourself apologizing to him, mentally, for the out of patience, short tempered, screaming banshee of a mother he got.

Yes, you do that.

Because, how could the world be so unfair as to give a child who has a heart for every underdog in the world, a mother like you?

How could a child who can sit for hours playing with his much younger brother, with such love and nurturing, get a mother like you?

How could a child who has taught you the peacefulness of going outside to just sit, get a mother like you?

My child, who brought tears to my eyes when he took me by the hand at age three, and pulled me outside to stare at bugs with him, because "they're more beautiful than anything I could ever draw, mama."

My child, who is happy wearing one blue sock, one green sock; getting a petty, trivial, stuck on details, mother like me?

All these labels, for a child who took my breath away by pulling himself up to the train table in the playroom when he was 17 months old, and spelling his eight lettered name out with the alphabet cars on the train track. I have pictures.

Yes, he takes me to the edge of my emotions.

It's only right, since he's taken me to a level of living, and opened my eyes to a world, and to a me, that I never would have known without him.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

So... the other day I posted this song that I like and I said that I really really liked the first few lines. Those lines are: "I don't have anything to write about anymore, my words have become boring" because, well... that's how I was feeling at the time.

And then my friend Karen, who blogs at Solodialogue wrote in the comments "You could write about an old shoe and it would be funny..."

Oh yeah, Karen? Well.....

I thought I'd get us started with some poetry! First, a limerick:

An old shoe sat by the door Its grey laces sagged to the floor It once used to run and have oh so much fun now feet in it happens no more.

Okay, that wasn't very funny, but I'm just getting started! Give me a break. How about a haiku?

The old shoe was white Dr. Scholl tried very hard Alas, it still smelled

And now, iambic pentameter

The shoe is old it sits upon the floorHe's sad because no one wears him these daysOne time he rode upon the feet of kingsBut now he smells and no feet will wear him

Hubs just walked by and asked me what I was doing. "I'm writing poetry about an old shoe," I said. I shit you not, he gave me this look:

Did you know that the world's oldest shoe is 5,500 years old, was created from a piece of cow hide and was a size 4? It's true. It was found in a cave by archeologists in Armenia, "with three pots, each containing a child's skull, along with containers of barley, wheat and apricot." Okay, well.... this guy here wrote about an old shoe and was funny. I don't seem to be doing a very good job.

HA HA Karen!! See? You were totally wrong! I can't write about an old shoe and be funny, after all!!! So there! AHA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!

Who the hell do I think I am?

Snarky, profane Mama to 2 boys: Child 1 is autistic and Child 2 OMGISN'T. I write about... stuff. Sometimes. Other times I write about other stuff. A lot of the time I don't write anything at all. Sometimes I draw really bad and stupid pictures. I'm not just saying that, I mean, they are just awful.